Is "biofuel" just a fancy way of saying we are going to use food to make fuel?

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.suntimes.com/business/currency/877580,CST-FIN-corn04WEB.article

Corn hits $6 a bushel on tight supplies

April 4, 2008

FROM THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Corn prices jumped to a record $6 a bushel Thursday, driven up by an expected supply shortfall that will only add to Americans' growing grocery bill and further squeeze struggling ethanol producers.

Corn prices have shot up nearly 30 percent this year amid dwindling stockpiles and surging demand for the grain used to feed livestock and make alternative fuels including ethanol. Prices are poised to go even higher after the U.S. government this week predicted that American farmers -- the world's biggest corn producers -- will plant sharply less of the crop in 2008 compared to last year. snip

Worldwide demand for corn to feed livestock and to make biofuel is putting enormous pressure on global supply. And with the U.S. expected to plant less corn, the supply shortage will only worsen. The U.S. Department of Agriculture projected that farmers will plant 86 million acres of corn in 2008, an 8 percent drop from last year.

[ColbertWatcher]

1. No, it means, the fuel can be grown, not mined...

...or drilled for.

Just because the GOP has ruined yet another industry due to their poor management abilities, doesn't necessarily mean that when someone competent gets into office we will be forced into a choice between food or fuel.

[NNN0LHI]

3. So it has nothing to do with that box of breakfast cereal that cost me 8 bucks yesterday?

Is that it?

Don

[ColbertWatcher]

8. Um...

...the cost of breakfast cereal and getting it to your local grocer is due in part to the cost of fuel.

But, I think the myth here is that there is a limited amount of corn and we can only use it for one thing.

False all the way around.

There is enough corn for fuel and food (and cattle feed, too).

There just isn't any political will to fight big whore oil.

[JackRiddler]

38. Incredible that you're falling for this complete scam...

Seemingly designed to lengthen the crisis and deepen the disaster of hydrocarbon-based civilization, all so that the government can dispense more largesse to agribusiness.

Biofuel is not a significant net source of energy. Growing and producing ethanol uses about as much OIL energy as just using the oil for fuel in the first place. (Energy return on energy investment hovering around 1.1 at best. Oil fuels currently provide 4 to 10 times as much energy for the end consumer as it takes to mine and produce it.) These are facts of physics, not of "the market."

And this coming at a time when world population (and consumption patterns, especially the focus on meat) are challenging food capacity.

All agricultural land in the US devoted to corn for energy wouldn't meet present fuel needs.

The rainforests of Brazil are now being clear-cut even faster on behalf of the food-for-fuel scam.

All delaying the inevitable day when it becomes obvious that only a mass-scale implementation of solar power and a solar-hydrogen fuel system can replace oil.

[alarimer]

50. That depends on what you use as the source.

Corn is more costly energetically to convert to ethanol than sugar is. Other things can be used to make ethanol and I don't know why we are not using them: lawn clippings, grass, leaves, switchgrass, lot of other things.

[JackRiddler]

54. Sugar is bad news...

Energetically superior to corn, to be sure, but still requiring land on an epic scale to make a dent in the fuel supply problem.

The rule should be simple: All waste products should be used. If it's produced incidentally in the course of any other process, don't just throw it away, use it. Once you cross over into repurposing land to grow food for fuel, it contributes to the disaster. It raises the pressure to clear more land and thus lose forests.

[lumberjack_jeff]

57. Corn is a bad biofuel.

The only reason that it's considered a biofuel at all is because of the ADM lobbyists. There are far better ones.

[DadOf2LittleAngels]

22. What ceral did tou buy?

I got two boxes for four dollars yesterday..

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

41. No.

That's because of the high price of fossil fuels.

[mike_c]

5. actually, it does....

You're making the mistake of anthropocentrism. All of the Earth's primary production-- plant biomass-- is eventually used as food by SOMETHING, whether as living biomass or as dead biomass consumed by detritivores. Any primary production we divert for fuel is in fact diverted food. It might not be human food, but it's the base of some food chain nonetheless.

[dysfunctional press]

9. not necessarily-

algae farms, built in the desert and using sea water to grow algae for the express purpose of making biofuel, wouldn't be taking a link out of any food chains.

[ColbertWatcher]

12. Thank you.

I'm sick of these justifications for obscene corporate profits and the anti-intellectualism that hides behind the fear mongering.

[mike_c]

13. of course they would....

By converting land from biomass production that would otherwise support some food chain. There's no such thing as a free lunch. Regarding desert lands as "nonarable" is itself pretty anthropocentric. They have low productivity, but most deserts still support endemic food chains.

[dysfunctional press]

24. by that measure, so does petroleum exploration,extraction, processing...etc.

same for solar panels and wind farms.

to be fair to the planet, i suppose we need to stop all energy production, go back to living in caves as hunter-gatherers, and let the excess population die off then...:shrug:

[mike_c]

27. of course not-- that's just hyperbole....

Nonetheless, there really isn't any way to satisfy the demands of the current human energy budget without doing harm to the planet, at least not at present-- I think it's important for us to remember that. Reducing humankinds energy footprint MUST be part of any responsible strategy for replacing fossil fuels.

[dysfunctional press]

28. check out this link-

what with all the barren desert in places like saudi arabia- they could continue to be huge energy exporters, even after their oil wells have all been pumped dry.

http://www.unh.edu/p2/biodiesel/article_alge.html

[mike_c]

44. the main problems with algal biofuel...

...are land use, which use of low productivity land partly alleviates, fertilization, and potential problems with GMOs, IMO. One cannot get multiple cycles of growth from algal growth chambers without some pretty significant nutrient inputs. Lipid output will always be some relatively constant fraction of total biomass, so the only two ways to increase lipid output are to increase nutrient input-- all the insolation in the world won't matter if growth is nutrient limited-- and selecting or engineering algal species that maximize the efficiency of lipid production, i.e. divert the maximum possible proportion of primary production to lipid storage.

The problems with nutrient supply are pretty obvious. They include the need for significant indirect energy subsidies and further loss of primary production as land is used for fertilizer production, delivery, and so on, as well as disposal issues. I think algal biomass SHOULD be used to produce biofuels-- that makes more sense than using corn, certainly-- it's just that there are some pretty significant problems and the need to convert HUGE quantities of N₂ to NO₄, along with providing other nutrients, is one of them.

If the efficiency problem is addressed with a GMO alga, which makes the most sense from a production perspective and is therefore a likely scenario, we will be creating a single-celled organism with the capacity to outcompete much of the ocean's natural phytoplankton community if it ever invades marine habits-- a virtual certainty. There are ways to TRY to prevent this, like making the engineered alga dependent upon a nutrient that's absent from natural habitats, but that's a dangerous gambit that I think will inevitably fail, sooner or later. The notion of creating a supremely invasive phytoplankter scares the bejesus out of me. Keeping those critters out of the ocean would be even more important than keeping artificially created radioactive isotopes sequestered, and we don't have a good track record.

[dysfunctional press]

53. as far as nutrients are concerned...

urban/agricultural sewage systems could probably provide for a lot of it.

as to the problems with gmo algae strains- i hadn't really considered that aspect before, and don't know what the possible answers might be.

[The2ndWheel]

14. But it would impact two eco-systems

Along with the one that we ended up using the biofuels in. Unfortunately, we're stuck in physical reality.

[dysfunctional press]

25. doesn't all energy production impact various ecosystems in some negative way?

is the best answer then to end ALL of them?

[The2ndWheel]

29. Yes they do

But I don't know what the best answer is. The human species gets its fair share of energy as a form of life. The more we take for ourselves, the larger our impact is on the planet.

What's the answer? 6.5+ billion people are on this planet, and that number will only grow before it doesn't, because we've taken more energy for ourselves. If you decrease that amount of energy, a lot of people die by the choice of some distant authority. If you increase that amount of energy, we negatively impact more eco-systems. It sounds like we can't win. Or at least something always loses. I'm not sure there is an answer.

[dysfunctional press]

32. the best answer may be a combination of sources that do the least harm...

solar, wind, geo-thermal, tidal, etc.
bio-fuel certainly seems like it could be doable- but ultimately it's still represents the burning of hydrocarbons, and contributes to global warming...:shrug:

[ColbertWatcher]

11. Technicality.

But, the "bio" in biofuel does not mean food, it means living, like biology.

[mike_c]

15. so the rest of the world's species are just a "technicallity...?"

That's a pretty anthropocentric notion. Of course, the other side of the argument is that fossil fuel consumption and global climate change does ecological damage too.

The real answer, from an ecological perspective, is reducing the human energy budget dramatically.

[Orsino]

19. Except for the part about it taking as much or more petroleum to grow, harvest and...

...process the corn than we get back in fuel replacement.

It's been a while since I've seen the numbers, but I doubt that this essential problem has been overcome.

[HereSince1628]

2. It doesn't have to be that way...but at present it is.

[madrchsod]

4. sure is..check the price of corn syrup

converting food grains into fuel is the worse idea since mankind started harvesting grain.

[dysfunctional press]

6. not if we use non-arable land to build algae farms that use salt-water to grow their "crops"

http://peswiki.com/index.php/Directory:Biodiesel_from_Algae_Oil

The advantages of deriving biodiesel from algae include rapid growth rates, a high per-acre yield; and algae biofuel contains no sulfur, is non-toxic, and is highly biodegradable. Some species of algae are ideally suited to biodiesel production due to their high oil content--in some species, topping out near 50%...

Gallons of Oil per Acre per Year
Corn . . . . . . . 15
Soybeans . . . .48
Safflower. . . . . 83
Sunflower . . . 102
Rapeseed. . . 127
Oil Palm . . . . 635
Micro Algae . .1850
Micro Algae . .5000-15000

[madrchsod]

10. the military is developing algae fuel

there`s a lot of deserts and a lot of salt water..it is the future

[Solon]

23. Alright, using the highest yield there, let's see how many acres it would take...

To keep up with current energy demands for oil. I'm taking the most optimistic figure of 15000 gallons per acre per year yield for the Micro Algae. Now, let's see how many acres would be needed to replace oil production, which is estimated to be 308.8995 billion barrels per year. First, convert the gallons to oil barrels, that's 42 gallons for every barrel, so that means that the Algae produces about 357.142857143 barrels per acre, per year. So divide the world oil production number with this figure, and see how many acres it would take to match oil production with biofuels made from Algae. After a little calculation, I come up with 864,918,599.999654033 acres that will have to be used to match oil production.

Now, looking at Wikipedia, the Earth has a total surface area of 510,072,000 km², and the land surface area is 148,940,000 km². This is in metric, unfortunately, so I'm going to have to convert it to acres. One acre equals about 4.048 square kilometers, so that means the Earth's total surface area is 126,005,928.853754941 acres. We need about 8 times that to match current oil production, uhm, that doesn't sound like its possible.

[dysfunctional press]

26. seems like the university of new hampshire physics dept. came up with different totals...

if only i could figure out who's numbers to better trust- an accredited state university physics dept., or some anonymous guy on the internet...hmmmm...:shrug:

http://www.unh.edu/p2/biodiesel/article_alge.html

II. Large scale production

There are two steps that would need to be taken for producing biodiesel on a large scale - growing the feedstocks, and processing them into biodiesel. The main issue that is often contested is whether or not we would be able to grow enough crops to provide the vegetable oil (feedstock) for producing the amount of biodiesel that would be required to completely replace petroleum as a transportation fuel. So, that is the main issue that will be addressed here. The point of this article is not to argue that this approach is the only one that makes sense, or that we should ignore other options (there are some other very appealing options as well, and realistically it makes more sense for a combination of options to be used). Rather, the point is merely to look at one option for producing biodiesel, and see if it would be capable of meeting our needs.

One of the important concerns about wide-scale development of biodiesel is if it would displace croplands currently used for food crops. In the US, roughly 450 million acres of land is used for growing crops, with the majority of that actually being used for producing animal feed for the meat industry. Another 580 million acres is used for grassland pasture and range, according to the USDA's Economic Research Service. This accounts for nearly half of the 2.3 billion acres within the US (only 3% of which, or 66 million acres, is categorized as urban land). For any biofuel to succeed at replacing a large quantity of petroleum, the yield of fuel per acre needs to be as high as possible. At heart, biofuels are a form of solar energy, as plants use photosynthesis to convert solar energy into chemical energy stored in the form of oils, carbohydrates, proteins, etc.. The more efficient a particular plant is at converting that solar energy into chemical energy, the better it is from a biofuels perspective. Among the most photosynthetically efficient plants are various types of algaes.

The Office of Fuels Development, a division of the Department of Energy, funded a program from 1978 through 1996 under the National Renewable Energy Laboratory known as the "Aquatic Species Program". The focus of this program was to investigate high-oil algaes that could be grown specifically for the purpose of wide scale biodiesel production1. The research began as a project looking into using quick-growing algae to sequester carbon in CO2 emissions from coal power plants. Noticing that some algae have very high oil content, the project shifted its focus to growing algae for another purpose - producing biodiesel. Some species of algae are ideally suited to biodiesel production due to their high oil content (some well over 50% oil), and extremely fast growth rates. From the results of the Aquatic Species Program2, algae farms would let us supply enough biodiesel to completely replace petroleum as a transportation fuel in the US (as well as its other main use - home heating oil) - but we first have to solve a few of the problems they encountered along the way.

NREL's research focused on the development of algae farms in desert regions, using shallow saltwater pools for growing the algae. Using saltwater eliminates the need for desalination, but could lead to problems as far as salt build-up in bonds. Building the ponds in deserts also leads to problems of high evaporation rates. There are solutions to these problems, but for the purpose of this paper, we will focus instead on the potential such ponds can promise, ignoring for the moment the methods of addressing the solvable challenges remaining when the Aquatic Species Program at NREL ended.

NREL's research showed that one quad (7.5 billion gallons) of biodiesel could be produced from 200,000 hectares of desert land (200,000 hectares is equivalent to 780 square miles, roughly 500,000 acres), if the remaining challenges are solved (as they will be, with several research groups and companies working towards it, including ours at UNH). In the previous section, we found that to replace all transportation fuels in the US, we would need 140.8 billion gallons of biodiesel, or roughly 19 quads (one quad is roughly 7.5 billion gallons of biodiesel). To produce that amount would require a land mass of almost 15,000 square miles. To put that in perspective, consider that the Sonora desert in the southwestern US comprises 120,000 square miles. Enough biodiesel to replace all petroleum transportation fuels could be grown in 15,000 square miles, or roughly 12.5 percent of the area of the Sonora desert (note for clarification - I am not advocating putting 15,000 square miles of algae ponds in the Sonora desert. This hypothetical example is used strictly for the purpose of showing the scale of land required). That 15,000 square miles works out to roughly 9.5 million acres - far less than the 450 million acres currently used for crop farming in the US, and the over 500 million acres used as grazing land for farm animals.

The algae farms would not all need to be built in the same location, of course (and should not for a variety of reasons). The case mentioned above of building it all in the Sonora desert is purely a hypothetical example to illustrate the amount of land required. It would be preferable to spread the algae production around the country, to lessen the cost and energy used in transporting the feedstocks. Algae farms could also be constructed to use waste streams (either human waste or animal waste from animal farms) as a food source, which would provide a beautiful way of spreading algae production around the country. Nutrients can also be extracted from the algae for the production of a fertilizer high in nitrogen and phosphorous. By using waste streams (agricultural, farm animal waste, and human sewage) as the nutrient source, these farms essentially also provide a means of recycling nutrients from fertilizer to food to waste and back to fertilizer. Extracting the nutrients from algae provides a far safer and cleaner method of doing this than spreading manure or wastewater treatment plant "bio-solids" on farmland.

These projected yields of course depend on a variety of factors, sunlight levels in particular. The yield in North Dakota, for example, wouldn't be as good as the yield in California. Spreading the algae production around the country would result in more land being required than the projected 9.5 million acres, but the benefits from distributed production would outweigh the larger land requirement. Further, these yield estimates are based on what is theoretically achievable - roughly 15,000 gallons per acre-year. It's important to point out that the DOE's ASP that projected that such yields are possible, was never able to come close to achieving such yields. Their focus on open ponds was a primary factor in this, and the research groups that have picked up where the DOE left off are making substantial gains in the yields compared to the old DOE work - but we still have a ways to go. But, consider that even if we are only able to sustain an average yield of 5,000 gallons per acre-year in algae systems spread across the US, the amount of land required would still only be 28.5 million acres - a mere fraction still of the total farmland area in the US.

[Occulus]

30. Your math is off

One square mile = 640 acres

square miles of arable land on Earth = north of 12 million, but I'll use it because it's nice and round

640 acres per square mile x 12 million square miles = 7,680,000,000 (that's seven point six billion) acres of arable land

[Solon]

31. Yeah, I noticed that, I screwed up my metric to imperial conversion...

when calculating the surface area of the Earth, I was off by over a factor of about one thousand.

As far as I can tell, that's the only major screw up I made. In that case, it would still take almost 1/7th of the Earth's total arable land to produce fuel.

On a brighter note, my original post would definitely applied if we used Corn for biofuel only. Also, from his response to me, the 15,000 figure is theoretically possible, they haven't reached it yet.

[dysfunctional press]

33. you don't even have to use the 15,000 gallon figure-

http://www.unh.edu/p2/biodiesel/article_alge.html

"...But, consider that even if we are only able to sustain an average yield of 5,000 gallons per acre-year in algae systems spread across the US, the amount of land required would still only be 28.5 million acres - a mere fraction still of the total farmland area in the US.

[Solon]

35. That would only give about a yield of 3.392 billion barrels a year...

If you doubt the math, its 5000/42 = 119.047 barrels per acre per year.

119.047 * 28500000 equals approximately the number I mentioned above.

For comparison, current consumption rate for the United States alone is about 20.588 million barrels a day. Multiply that by 365 and you get 7.514620 billion barrels of oil consumed per year in the United States. That's only half of what is needed to keep our consumption at the same rate it is today. You'll need to at least double the acreage.

ON EDIT: I have a question, are there any estimates on how much energy it will take to maintain the algae on dry land? You'll need pumps, infrastructure, etc. to keep them alive, in addition to most likely some type of temperature regulation, if they can't survive extreme heat or cold, etc.

[dysfunctional press]

36. the article deals with replacing petroleum fuels used for transportation

and doesn't take into account the stuff used for home-heating and producing electricity.

and if they are able to attain the 15,000 gal/acre/year, it would be trebling the amount, so the acreage wouldn't need to be doubled.

is there a better future source of energy that's as close or closer to fruition/feasibility as far you're concerned? or are you more or less resigned to a major die-off of humanity?

[Solon]

37. Most of our electricity usage comes from coal or natural gas, not oil...

Oil is mostly used for transportation, petrochemicals, and, in some areas of the country, heating oil.

As far as answers to your question, no there isn't a real alternative to oil for transportation uses or petrochemicals. As far as the second question, well, stop driving cars, and reclaim a lot of the lost farmland and we MIGHT be able to avoid a die off, but, to be honest, I'm not optimistic.

[dysfunctional press]

42. people will not stop driving cars, that's a given.

it may mean a diverse range of methods to provide power when petroleum becomes too expensive or scarce, but cars in one form or another will be a big part of the social landscape for quite awhile yet. and india and china are pretty much just getting started.

seeing as it's not the first time that humanity has made short-sighted and self-centered decisions, it's a pretty good bet as well that biofuels will be a big part of the mix until cleaner technologies are better developed to be more reliable and efficient. so we might as well find ways to produce biofuels that detracts as little as possible from our food-chain.

[Solon]

46. Why is that a given?

No one's going to drive cars if its too expensive to do so, and cars themselves are the third most inefficient means of transport known to man, outside of rocketing people into space using chemical rockets and jet airplanes.

The problem isn't producing the energy, its storing it in efficient and portable ways. Hydrogen is out, its an energy sink, so fuel cells are a dead end. Batteries, while more efficient now, aren't anywhere near the energy density of petroleum. Biofuels hold some promise, but then the problems manifest in two ways, first, most biofuels are produced using energy and oil based fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides. Hell, certain biofuel sources, such as corn, actually consume more oil than the energy you get out of it, in other words, another energy sink.

The second problem is related to the first, as these oil based chemicals, and industrial farming, become more expensive, that means that yields of crops will start decreasing. Our top soil in most of the breadbaskets of the world is in the worst condition its ever been in. Farming practices like crop rotation and the use of natural nitrate fertilizers hasn't been practice for over 50 years. They REQUIRE oil based chemicals just to keep the yields as high as they are now, that isn't sustainable in the long run. We are going to have to increase the amount of arable land, just for food, not fuel, just to keep 6 billion plus people alive.

The biggest obstacle is this, how much time do we have? Not much, most likely well less than a decade, maybe a little less. Hell, it could be too late already. Its fine to develop new energy technologies, but when you don't have the time to implement them, or build the infrastructures required to utilize them, how will that help?

[dysfunctional press]

47. because it's what our current culture is built around, and china's is being converted to...

personally, i think that we've already past the tipping point for global warming- even if we stopped ALL carbon output tomorrow, the planet/atmosphere would continue warming for 4-5 decades...and we obviously aren't going to stop anytime soon. when people start dying in huge numbers, people MIGHT change their behaviors- but not at first, since the dying in huge numbers won't start in the industrialized world for awhile yet.

[lumberjack_jeff]

56. The valuable thing about liquid fuels is that they are well suited for transportation.

Using liquid fuels in a stationary application makes little sense, were it not for the fact that it has been plentiful and cheap it wouldn't be used in that manner.

[chixydix]

49. Uh, one square km. is equal to about 247 acres...

...

[Mika]

7. THE INTERNATIONALIZATION OF GENOCIDE

THE INTERNATIONALIZATION OF GENOCIDE


-

[OzarkDem]

16. Not such a good idea

I would prefer to see energy come from sun, wind, geo-thermal, etc. sources that are more reliable.

[OmahaBlueDog]

17. Some examples of biofuels that aren't food

Manure can be made to emit burnable gas. I don't know if you've ever noticed, but most sewage treatment plants burn off gas concentrations. The principle is like that of a giant septic tank.

Ethanol can be made from sawdust and wood chips, or native grasses. The native grasses can be readily cultivated on marginal land, and require little in the way of fertilization or insecticide.

Even if one uses a "food source", more efficient ethnanol sources could be utilized (requiring less fertilization, etc). Sugar beets could be widely grown in much of the upper corn belt, as could industrial sweet potato.

However, let's just say (hypothetically) that we couldn't use gasoline at all, and that we had to use ethanol. The other solution is to continue to create high efficiency vehicles (like the Prius) using readily available technology and design them to run on ethanol. The effect is to stretch the supply as far as possible to keep demand for shifting more crop land over down as far as possible.

BTW, a box of cornflakes (depending on size) has between .10 and .20 dollars worth of corn (it may not even be that high). The majority of what you're paying for is shipping, packaging, spoilage, and profit.

My guess is that we are not inducing worldwide famine. Without getting into whole lengthy debates about ecosystems and how people were happy until colonialists showed up, starvation in the world today is not caused by lack of affordable food. Starvation in the world today is caused by an inability to distribute food in many areas due to war or extreme political corruption.

[Karenina]

18. Nah... It's just a moniker that screams

"WE ARE TEMINALLY STUPID!!!" :evilgrin:

[Lance_Boyle]

20. I use biodiesel made from waste oil.

Would you like to drink that waste oil? Or would you prefer that it be thrown out? Or go to the traditional renderers who would sell it to cosmetic companies to be used in lipstick?

"Biofuel" is a dangerously broad term, lumping together many divergent technologies. Most often it refers to the ethanol boondoggle, which I think we all agree is a bad thing.

[dysfunctional press]

34. but there's not enough waste oil for everyone to do it.

and if A LOT of people were doing it, the price of waste oil would go from free to expensive.

[Lance_Boyle]

48. which is fine

a market will form for used waste oil. At this point, many restaurants PAY renderers to take their used oil. Many others have local people who brew biodiesel (or who run on purified waste veggie oil) to take their oil. When there is competition for the used oil, a market will form to determine who gets it. If the cosmetic companies want the oil badly enough, they will pay the traditional renderers more to collect and purify the oil. If biodieselers want it more, they may resort to paying for it. Lots of people are driving free (save taxes) on used oil now. They may be willing to pay $1/gallon to drive on the same stuff. Will cosmetic companies pay traditional renderers enough to make collection worthwhile in the face of competition? Who knows? This is one place where a free market is developing, and it should be allowed to do so. It hurts nobody, and benefits many. And it most certainly does NOT involve food sources being used for fuel.

[DadOf2LittleAngels]

21. Food based fuels are a sub set of bio-fules

But the term biofuel can also refer to used products such as vegetable oil no longer suitable for cooking. Switch grass which is not suitable for human consumption...

Corn based ethonal is a joke it exports more c02, takes more energy to make, and drives up food prices.. Truth be told they should take all those subsidies and put them into alternative ways of generating electricity. Give farmers money to put windmills in the their fields..

[JackRiddler]

39. Recycling waste oil (and manure) is a great thing!

By definition, it cannot solve the energy problem, but if you can get 1 or 2 percent of your energy consumption out of such sources, great. Growing for ethanol, on the other hand, is both scam and, ultimately, crime on humanity.

[LeftHander]

40. Bush legacy - Burn food, eat cardboard from China. nt

[KamaAina]

43. Corn isn't even a very efficient crop for fuel conversion

Brazil, which is among the world leaders in biofuel, uses mostly sugarcane, which is twice as efficient. Yes, we might have to import some (though there are thousands of acres of fallow cane fields out here that haven't been paved over into suburbs yet), but importing some cane from pretty much any tropical country is a lot different than importing oil from the geopolitical tinderbox known as the Middle East.

And then there's hemp, which grows well on marginal land not presently in food production, but you probably already knew that. :smoke:

edit: So why the emphasis on corn? Three words: Archer Daniels Midland. :grr:

[blindpig]

45. It's an obscenity.

Yet people will acquiesce to this corporate abuse of our resources in the name of the suburban/automobile culture. We've allowed ourselves to be put in a trap, getting out will require some work. Like confused, fearful animals some will refuse to leave the trap, even though they could and the man with the gun approaches...

[Kitty Herder]

51. Usually. Making bio-diesel from used deep-fryer grease, that's an exception.

I had friends who took advantage of the grease from the restaurant they worked at to provide free fuel for their truck. They were using waste that would otherwise have been thrown away, so they weren't taking food from any one's mouth.

Making ethanol from corn, on the other hand, is a huge mistake that is hurting people in South America.

[Mountainman]

52. It means damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!

[ThomWV]

55. Something seems a little wrong here, maybe, maybe not.

Certainly there is little doubt that the use of corn as the basis of a fuel increases price but I don't think its had very much to do with the doubling of price mentioned. I say that because wheat, which is not used to make fuel as far as I know, has also gone up in price by two or three times. I claim no expertise in this but I seem to recall Wheat prices at about $4~5 per bushel a year or two ago but a couple of weeks ago I recall seeing it at $10.

Also, and once again, no expertise here, but don't we grow sugar beats in great abundance and wouldn't they make a better fuel stock than corn if its distilled alcohol that is what is desired?

[NNN0LHI]

58. Here is the answer to the wheat question

http://www.ethanolproducer.com/article.jsp?article_id=2387

Husky opens wheat-based ethanol plant in western Canada

From the October 2006 Issue

By Dave Nilles

The largest ethanol plant in western Canada is now in operation. Husky Energy’s 130 million-liter-per-year (34 MMgy) wheat-to-ethanol plant in Saskatchewan is producing ethanol.

The ceremonial grand opening was held the final week of September in Lloydminster, Saskatchewan. The plant is in the midst of start-up and producing ethanol, according to Graham White, Husky’s senior communications advisor. Full operation is expected later this month.

The grand opening was attended by Saskatchewan Premier Lorne Calvert. The Lloydminster plant is expected to help the province reach its goal of having 7.5 percent ethanol-blended gasoline. “This project is a world-class example of the growing value of biofuels and the important role cleaner burning fuels such as ethanol can play,” Calvert said. “Husky has shown confidence in the Saskatchewan economy with its major investment in this plant and leadership in making these fuels increasingly available to the public. We are proud to have created a climate in our province in which ethanol development and such investments occur.”

Husky’s plant will use 13 million bushels of wheat annually as feedstock, although it is capable of using corn, according to White.

[XemaSab]

59. But if we use our crops to fuel our cars

where's the Victory Gin going to come from? :shrug: